Q: I updated my phone and now at the bottom of Itunes it shows documents and data as taking space on my phone. What is this and how do I clean it up?

Hi.  Did you ever figure this out?  I think after a year & hundreds of hours, that I figured it out....

Hi - I am muddling through this document/data issue right now...

I'm pretty frustrated as are MANY others, I see... anyway, val825, did you figure out how to fix this? 

I'm assuming the documents/data is related to the usage of the various apps that I can see under my settings/usage on my iphone 5?  It's not like there's ONE app that's using all the space... rather LOTS of apps that are using just enough to add up to my %12 storage issue. 

I've read all kinds of suggestions on these forums, from installing additional "cleaning apps" on both my itunes and my iphone... to clearing the cache's on different apps... to removing the whole app... even clearing my whole iphone and then restoring it... to deleting the backup videos on your apps on your iphone.  (I THOUGHT when  I dumped them into iTunes as a back up.... and iTunes asked me if  I wanted to DELETE them... that I did.)  I guess I didn't because I still  see MB of storage under these apps too, and I don't show any videos on  my iphone.  Oh- and the most recent "simple" suggestion but not a QUICK one: "you just need to go through and clear out your mail (sent and received), texts, backups of the FB pics you uploaded, etc..."

Riiiiiiight.  Excellent suggestion... if I had the time?

I'm assuming the last suggestion might work - I guess I'm wondering why I had a LOT  of extra space before I upgraded to the i0S 7 --- BUT  now I am seeing 12% of space called "data & documents" used???  I have the SAME amount of data/settings on my phone now, that I had had just an hour before?  Seems like something is "off" here.

Looks like the i0S7 is my nemesis... would LOVE to meet the team that  thought this software was "ready" to launch - I've just spent four hours  with a phone that was in "recovery mode" after trying to insall the upgrade, only to  have to research and then restore my iphone, and THOUGHT it was fixed... to NOW find out there's a "glitch" in  this new UPGRADE  that has me using 12% of my 16% storage that I wasn't using  before... even a mere "consumer" can tell something was wrong with this "upgrade" before it launched, if  there are this many forums devoted to this subject! 

I'm ASSUMING you (val825) had the same thoughts, and it's why you worked on it for so long?  Can you help?  I would really, really, really appreciate a simple fix that doesn't involve deleting all my apps or clearing them out completely... BUT I understand if you (or another?) can't give me a simple answer.  Just really need clarification - and QUICK!

Thanks in advance!  B

OMG YES!  I did figure it out - at least for me.  I had 8 GB of D & D/Other.  It was ‘saved’ texts messages from iOS6.  Go into Settings --> General --> Usage and see how much storage your Message app is using. I had to use iBackupBot and delete everything in the folders: HomeDomain/Library/SMS and MediaDomain/Library/SMS in the backup. 

After doing everything you have done, I decided to play around a bit more.  I backed up my phone through iTunes (so I could restore after messing with it.  I couldn't back up to the cloud bc I had 8 GB of junk) and started deleting things.  I first wiped ALL my texts - my text app was completely empty.  (You have to go into each conversation, delete all the messages, then delete the texts.)  This cleared up ab 2 GB of my D & D – which ok, made sense to me.  I deleted my e-mail account - this barely did anything.  I deleted every single app from my phone that it would let me.  No music, no pics, nothing on my phone - yet I still had 2.2 GB of green D & D & 2 GB of yellow Other!!! 4 GB of NOTHING!!  This is when I figured out what my problem was - I went into Settings --> General --> Usage. Since I had nothing on my phone only a few things popped up BUT my Message app was at the top, using 2.2 GB.  My Messages app was completely empty. Then I looked and it says "Messages (Saved) 2.2 GB" yet it didn’t give me a way to delete them.  Long story short, I started checking out message boards and sure enough this was a lot of people’s problem.  People were saying it was a "bug" with iOS6 that "saved" your messages even after you deleted them, yet didn’t give you a way to delete the saved texts.  I had to use iBackupBot and manually go into my phone's folder and delete the texts.  Sure enough when I did this, my D & D went to 400 MB, I could backup to the cloud again.  My yellow Other went down but it’s still at 1 GB.  From what I've read this is mostly like corrupt files/data/texts that are saved on the phone and most likely can’t be removed without completely restoring your phone.  At this point I am happy having 1 GB of junk on my phone instead of the 8 GB I had before.

Read though the forum below.  This is where I saw how to do it.  This was a nightmare for me for over a year – I was so happy to figure it out I hope this helps

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1601783

to delete "docments and data" from your iphone! On your phone go to settings>icloud>documents and data> then turn it off!! youre welcome

I went into general --> settings --> usage. Then when all your apps pop up it will show you how much data is being stored by each app. I went through and deleted the data for most apps (even ones I don't have downloaded on my phone anymore!) and saved about 2 GB of space

I've had this problem for over a year with 3 iPads and 1 iPhone, doing a soft reset by holding the power and home button down until the unit shuts down sometimes help by cleaning some of the other memory, also shutting down any film/TV programme that you are streaming from the cloud can also clear over 1gb. Deleting emails and messages can also help bit but I don't think this is the root cause of the problem as my 5 year daughter doesn't use mail or messages and some how seems to accumulate up to 5gb of other data some times, the only sure way of clearing it is to do a full back up and restore but this is very time consuming and a pain in the arse when she can build it back up in only a few days. Would be nice if apple addressed this problem or a button within settings to wipe it. Don't bother trying to reset all you setting either as this does not work and you will also have then individually reset all passwords and restriction that you had already set. 

what if i"m not using icloud? will it still help? i did sign up and use icloud for a week and stopped. could it still be saving data? i did what you suggested and saw docs and data ON. so now i just turned it off

mewp07 wrote:

 

what if i"m not using icloud? will it still help?

No, because elliepoo does not know what she is talking about.

That simply stops any doc/data info from syncing to iCloud.

The Documents & Data are still on your device.

Documents & Data is info used by the apps on your device.

ok thanks. but what do I do?

mewp07 wrote:

 

ok thanks. but what do I do?

About what?

You dont want to use any apps?

Just delete them.

whats the cause of the documents and data to be so high?

"whats the cause of the documents and data to be so high?"

You use apps.

"You use apps"

That was an utterly unhelpful and condescending response.  I know this thread is dead, but I can't stand it when someone who lives on a forum (Level 9!) acts this way to people who have questions.

My daughter's new iPhone 5s has 4.27 GB of D&D and 1.97 GB of "Other".  This is a very poorly managed OS to get 2 gigs of "Other" in a month.  Most of the D&D is saved texts.  This came about through Apple's terrible backup process.  Regardless, there is no convenient way to clean this data up.  This leaves non-technical people like my daughter flummoxed.

This is a real problem, and it looks like I'm going to have to go through third-party software to fix it.  Resetting the phone is not an option.  Grumble.